'UPFRONT with Mike Gousha' recap for Feb. 24, 2013

State Senate President Mike Ellis tells "UPFRONT with Mike Gousha" he's concerned Gov. Scott Walker's plan to expand school vouchers usurps local control, may leave a gap in funding for school districts and could still leave children from low-income families stuck in failing schools.

The Neenah Republican argued the voucher program should be subject to a referendum in each district.

"There is no local input into this plan, period. Secondly there is a huge movement of public tax dollars away from the public school and into the private setting,” he said on the Sunday program, produced with WisPolitics.com.

As students leave a district, a “huge financial hole” will be left the public school district's budget. Ellis said he worries property taxes will have to increase in order to compensate.

Ellis said the expansion departs from the original program, approved in order to give options to children in Milwaukee, which has high poverty and numerous failing schools.

Under this expansion to communities around the state, Ellis said if only a few schools in a district receive a failing grade, then vouchers would be available to every student in the district. This would result in a lottery to choose recipients for the vouchers and still leave some low-income students stuck in a failing public school.

“A district doesn’t fail just because one school does,” he said.

He said seven or eight Republican senators share his view and hopes compromise can be reached.

-- Also on the program was Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who discussed the state of the economy and looming mandated across-the-board budget cuts.

Although Baldwin and the Democrats have a plan to avert so-called sequestration for one year, Baldwin said she doubts a plan could pass by the Friday deadline. While she said it's likely sequestration would go into effect, it wouldn't last long due to the economic harm and political pressure that would follow.

“We have deep concerns about how it will impact our economy and economic recovery,” she said.

Baldwin said if the cuts were to continue indefinitely, economic experts predict they would cut economic growth in half and displace two million workers.

"This is a very significant impact," Baldwin said.

Baldwin also said economic recovery will be a long-term challenge if the two parties cannot work together.

“We have a deficit and debt challenge, but we also have an economic recovery challenge,” she said. "You cannot have a set of solutions to one that frustrates our ability to respond to the other, Baldwin said. “We have to be able to respond to both."

On gun violence, Baldwin said Congress needs to look at universal background checks and improved mental health treatment. She added the issue of high-capacity magazines needs to be looked at “very careful,” and that she would have to see the details of any legislation banning assault rifles.

On immigration reform, she said there's bipartisan agreement on a framework to increase border security and provide a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

Baldwin also told Gousha she would vote for former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel as defense secretary.